Cave Johnson here! CEO of Aperture Science, and as of today the new Jumpchan. That’s right, I fired her. She’s gone. No, just kidding. Lab boys say that would result in an instantaneous collapse of a continually growing branch of multiverses. Definitely bad for profits. I’ve got her helping with the Perpetual Testing Initiative instead.

Now, you might be asking yourself, “Cave, just what are my goals here? What’s in this phone book of a Jump? Will this end my chain?”

Let me answer those questions with a question: Who wants to make 1,000 Aperture Points? Free!

+1000 Aperture Points

Great! Now that you’re all situated, I have tests to run. I’ll let my assistant Caroline explain the rest. Good luck! Or not. From our perspective, your success or failure is literally meaningless. You lose an arm, that’s still useful data.

Cave Johnson! We’re done here.

Goals: Unlike most Jumps, your goal and what version of the Portal universe you’ll be entering will depend on what origin you pick.

If you pick Test Subject, you begin at the start of Portal. Your goal is to complete GLaDOS’s initial tests and eventually escape the facility twice. The first time you escape you’ll be recaptured somehow and will need to help GLaDOS reclaim control of the facility before it’s destroyed forever. There’s nothing stopping you from completing the bare minimum of tests or and blowing up GLaDOS with your powers, but Aperture hardware is routinely durable enough to survive the surface of some stars. The whole ordeal of testing and escaping will take around five years, and will be moderately dangerous and difficult.

If you pick Test Robot, you begin after the end of Portal 2. Your goal is to do whatever GLaDOS says for a time no longer than five years, including locating and rescuing a stash of cryogenically frozen humans. Unlike Test Subject, this goal will almost exclusively mean running tests. At least this origin allows you to import a companion for free to run the tests with you. This goal will be equally dangerous and difficult as Test Subject, but in different ways.

If you pick JuDOS, you begin at the moment of GLaDOS’s activation and replace her as Aperture’s AI and leader. Your goal is to keep yourself and the facility functional for ten years, with corporate success and employee safety optional. This will not be easy. Even if you don’t turn Aperture’s staff against you or free Chell, you’ll have other hostile test subjects, unruly artificial employees, rival corporations, and your own beleaguered legal team constantly getting in your way. At some unspecified time in GLaDOS’s life, the Seven Hour War may have occurred. Combine may start looking for your facility. It won’t be difficult being an AI with total corporate and mechanical control over Aperture, but it is remarkably dangerous.

If you pick Technical CEO, you begin in the 80’s at the moment of Cave Johnson’s death. Instead of constructing an AI and putting Caroline’s brain inside it, he put you in charge of the company. Your goal is to return Aperture to the fame, respect, and profitability it enjoyed in the 50’s, allowing you to buy out the government funded bastards at Black Mesa. Upon doing so you will be able to shut down their Anomalous Materials research, preventing the Resonance Cascade and saving the world. You have ten years to accomplish this. This will not be physically dangerous, but will be a task of herculean difficulty. Aperture is bankrupt, somehow still in debt, distrusted by the government after killing astronauts, viewed with extreme skepticism by the scientific community, and many of their less impossible ideas have been stolen.

Origins: Test Subject: You wake up in a testing chamber at the beginning of Portal 1. You have effectively replaced Chell. Does that mean you’re an orphan now? Don’t let GLaDOS know! She’d never let you hear the end of it.

+No memories, biases, or hatred for humans making things difficult. +You are literally the only living person in Aperture who has an actual idea of what science is. +Free portal gun with another hidden in the facility! -You’ve replaced Chell, meaning you have years of testing and an amoral AI to deal with. -Using a portal gun in real life is completely different than using one with a controller. -Remember how many tries some of those tests took? You can’t respawn.

Test Robot: You and one companion of your choice are sardonically lovingly greeted by GLaDOS. After a few precursory insults, you’re each given a freshly polished portal device and sent to your first test. Or you’re sent to search the Aperture offices for something that will help you “save science.” Whatever that means.

+You get to take a companion with you for company! +Remember how fun it was playing Portal 2 for the first time? Somehow that feeling never goes away. +Two free portal guns. -Weird robot memories of being designed by Cave Johnson. -GLaDOS has no regard for your safety and will try to turn your companion against you. +-She’s kind of a Tsundere, and will occasionally admit you’re doing a good job.

Jumper Disk Operating System, or JuDOS: You come online with a thousand eyes in a thousand places, viewing Aperture through a myriad of security cameras, sensor arrays, and live footage of humans running test courses. You immediately have command of the entire facility, including a sizeable amount of deadly neurotoxin connected to the air circulation system. You’re not a murderer though, right? Murder is for mute lunatics.

+You gain a boost in your mathematical and reasoning skills for free! +You have an army of robots and employees at your command. +Both of which excel at constructing test chambers of your design for you to run subjects through. -Employees and test subjects are frustratingly hard to kill. -Employees, test subjects, robots, aliens on the surface, and rogue turrets may try to murder you. -You gain a slight dislike for humans and an undeserved respect for Cave Johnson. -You’re trapped in a computer for the duration of the Jump.

Technical CEO: You’re talking to a scientist about the uses of peanut water when one of the few lawyers still working at Aperture comes running to you in a panic, waving an updated copy of Cave’s will. The entire plan to build an artificial intelligence had been canceled at the last minute. For some inexplicable reason, the company now belongs to the only employee who saw eye to eye with him on science. That’s you. Good luck. +You have the whole of Aperture under your thumb. Portal guns? Twelve different versions! Gel? Enough to fill a lake! Weird robots? Every kind you can think of with the exception of a central AI! +Your employees will do almost anything for you, whether because they’re scared you’ll fire them or relieved you’re not crazy like their last boss. +You can understand the crazy logic that separates “Aperture science” from “actual science.” -Aperture’s stock is trading lower than Black Mesa’s on the day of the Combine invasion. -Your employees are brilliant, but they’re universally mad scientists. Cave fired the sane ones. -Not only did Cave not fire you, he liked you enough to give you the company.

Perks:

“…..” (100 AP, Free Test Subject): You can get across with a look or nonverbal gesture what would take a normal person a sentence to explain. You become skilled at nonverbal communication and can learn to interpret it much easier than most. With a few weeks spent practicing in the mirror, you could have a lively discussion with Gordon Freeman.

Look at her, you moron. She’s clearly not fat. (300 AP, Discount Test Subject): You’re essentially impossible to bring down with insults and verbal slights. Sometimes they just won’t bother you, other times you’ll know they’re not true, and in particularly hilarious situations a disembodied voice in your head will dryly deconstruct their argument for you. Sometimes it’ll unintentionally give you an insult to throw back in the process. This doesn’t make you immune to well-reasoned arguments, but it does make you immune to being demoralized by arguments.

Thinking with portals. (600 AP, Discount Test Subject): You have an innate knowledge of how the forces of gravity and kinetic energy will act on your body and held possessions in any given scenario. You still need the physical or technological ability to make use of this perk in a meaningful way, but a Jumper with acrobatic or combat ability could know exactly how much force to jump with to leap over an enemy’s head, kick off a nearby wall, and ram back into that enemy sending him or her to the ground. A Jumper with this ability, some kind of handheld quantum tunneling device, and a pair of shoes to keep them safe from the strength of their impacts could move with untold style and efficiency.

Unlike us, humans need to be taught teamwork. (100 AP, Free Test Robot): If you had any problem working as a coherent unit with someone you’ve never met, you don’t anymore. Your ability to cooperate with others is literally robotic, cutting through misunderstandings and inconsequential differences in how you operate. This perk won’t make an ally out of an enemy or turn a group of four random people into the A-Team, but it’ll help whenever you need to work with a complete stranger on something important. That’s not just flattery. You are great at science. (300 AP, Discount Test Robot): Your boss, rival, co-worker, or Tsundere waifu gives you a hard time, but you can tell they really like you. Sometimes. If you’re lucky. They bury it under a lot of insults.

With this perk, anyone in a position of authority you’re not somehow working against or trying to kill will find it hard to genuinely hate you. That curmudgeon mob boss who threatens to break your legs or the crazy AI who constantly threatens you with death? Believe it or not, they’re acting that way out of grudging respect. They won’t follow through on their threats unless you give them a really good reason. This is useful in Jumps with a lot of powerful characters, at least one of which could randomly find a tiny reason not to like you.

Without the consequence of death, is this even science? (600 AP, Discount Robot): What’s the best part about being a robot? Not being a disgusting human, according to GLaDOS. The second best thing is this perk.

You aren’t invincible or immortal, but if you’re injured in a way that resembles a part being “disconnected” from your body the medical odds will always be in your favor. Both arms cut off? An average doctor could reattach them in the minimal amount of time needed with no complications. Organ failure? Forget sanitary conditions or the body accepting the organ. Stick in the first healthy heart you can find and it’ll function as perfectly as it physically can. Any robot forms you have can now be disassembled and reassembled by advanced machinery like the Test Robots in Portal 2 without killing you. During disassembly, your head houses your consciousness and is always kept whole.

You’re understandably vulnerable and unable to use certain abilities when your body is in twenty separate pieces. Unless you have technology or another perk that makes it possible, you can’t literally stick a cut off organic arm back on your body like Wolverine or Deadpool. A robot arm is a different story depending on complexity, perks, and if you’re skilled enough.

We’ve both done a lot of things that you’re going to regret. (100 AP, JuDOS): Ouch! You gain the abilities of a successful insult comic at the top of their game. You’ll have no trouble coming up with endless insults, passive aggressive statements, and comebacks. Whether they’re hilarious to everyone or just funny to you is optional.

The Enrichment Center regrets to inform you that this next test is impossible. (300 AP, Discount JuDOS): Who says you need “controls” and “logical experiments” to get workable results? You have a gift for getting useful information out of testing scenarios that would never be allowed in a real lab. To be specific, you can get the same results a top scientific team would get from an expertly designed controlled experiment by running a somewhat dodgy if expensive natural experiment.

Goodbye, Caroline. (600 AP Discount Artificial Intelligence): You gain the ability to delete and reupload the parts of your personality that care about things. Want to throw a villain off guard? Momentarily delete the part of you that cares about the safety of innocents to keep him from threatening you! Have to deal with an annoying escort mission? Upload care for that person, then delete it when they’re gone!

When you delete a part of your personality, enough of that part will hang around to make you want to reupload it if that was your plan. The same goes for uploading care you intend to be temporary.

Good enough for science. Not Aperture Science! (100 AP, Free Technical CEO): Pick one of these two options: one PhD in a subject which actually exists, or 3 PhDs in subjects which only exist in Aperture. Applied physics of quantum tunneling, multiverse search algorithms, and event horizon containment are examples of Aperture only degrees. You can buy this perk twice, but it’s only free once.

Why not marry safe science if you love it so much? (300 AP, Discount Technical CEO): How the hell aren’t you sued or in jail yet?! By sheer audacity, you can flaunt restrictions, laws, and rules as long as you have some real progress to show for it. People will either be too stunned to call you out or go along with it in disbelief. There is a limit to what you can get away with, but if you’re doing literally impossible work at your own expense without active malicious intent, things like “ethics review boards” and “bankruptcy” are closer to guidelines than laws.

They’re gonna have to invent a new type of Nobel Prize to give us. (800 AP, Discount Technical CEO):

You gain Cave Johnson’s ability to create something impossible out of something completely, incredibly different. This ability is heavily reliant on your resources, how difficult a problem the “completely, incredibly different” thing is, and pays out only in the long term, but it’s worth it. In honor of Cave, I’ll explain it using Aperture’s history.

In the 1940’s the curtain company Aperture Fixtures tried to solve a problem that our Earth scientific community still has no definite answer for: the shower curtain effect. Somehow, Cave’s engineers managed to solve it by creating a quantum tunnel between the inside and outside of a shower. In the 50’s, they were researching that effect with funding second only to Black Mesa and used astronauts and Olympians as test subjects. They threw employee safety and retention out the window, disregarded every form of ethics imaginable, and were ultimately driven into an absurd level of bankruptcy thirty years later. Even when the company was on its last legs after GLaDOS was activated and tried to kill everyone with neurotoxin, she described the team at Aperture as being “the greatest minds of a generation.”

This can be considered the “perfect” scenario for helping this perk function at full capacity. Fifty years of constant, no expenses spared, abnormally efficient research primarily focused on a single effect using a gigantic testing facility and eschewing all concerns except results. A Jumper doesn’t have to disregard ethics to have the perk working at that level, but they’d need to use human equivalent robots like GLaDOS eventually did. What did that half century result in? They perfected the portal gun, which functions by harnessing and stabilizing a black hole in a device half the size of someone’s arm. Ignoring the potential for free energy with careful use of portals, they built the black hole equivalent of a dyson sphere and used it to create tunnels in the fabric of reality. Why? Because fifty years ago, they wanted to make a really useful shower curtain. That’s what this perk can look like.

It’s never clear when this perk is going to “proc,” but it will happen often enough to make the capstone worth taking. If the Jumper isn’t helping it run at “peak” capacity or spending decades on one project, it’ll result in innovations that are still useful but aren’t on the level of the portal gun. Some examples are repulsion gel, storage containers that can survive the heat of the sun, tiny fusion reactors, and footwear that allows a human to jump off a building and land unharmed. Technologies researched with this ability can’t always be generalized. The portal gun uses a black hole to tear holes in the fabric of reality, but that was the only thing Aperture could reliably do with one. They didn’t have any ability to build a black hole into a weapon or use it for energy.

Items:

Storage cube inventory. (100 AP, discount JuDOS and Technical CEO): A collection of 50 Aperture Science storage cubes, heat resistant enough to survive the photosphere of some stars, shock proof, bulletproof, rocketproof, terminal velocity proof, King Kong proof, and difficult to open if you don’t understand Aperture technology. That includes everybody except the scientists that make it. They’ll give you instructions on how to open it.

Weighted Companion Cube. (100 AP, discount Test Subject and Test Robot): It’s nothing special. Somebody stamped a heart on a storage cube and the internet made a meme out of it. You don’t really think it’s sentient do you? That’s air going through the pipe systems, not the cube whispering to you. I wouldn’t waste time keeping it around.

Aperture Science Handheld Portal Device. (150 AP): A fully functioning portal gun, capable of opening and closing quantum tunnels on suitable surfaces. Every origin gets at least one for free. Test Subject begins with one, Test Robot gets two, and JuDOS and Technical CEO get three working versions and a ton of flawed prototypes. “Rip your skin off when you jump through a portal” flawed, before you get any ideas.

Portals can only be opened on solid, mostly smooth surfaces which are capable of conducting portals the size of a human person. What materials conduct portals? Certain tiled floors, metal, any kind of prop, doors and windows cannot conduct portals, while other tiled floors and the surface of the moon can. You’ll either need to ask GLaDOS or the scientists to summarize Aperture’s research on the topic or douse everything in conversion gel to know if a given surface will conduct a portal. Long Fall Boots. (50 AP, free Test Subject, Test Robot): Footwear which allows a human moving at terminal velocity to impact a solid surface without any harm or loss of balance. It doesn’t make movement difficult and can easily be adapted to nonhuman forms. Robot feet, for example.

Conversion Gel recipe. (100 AP, discount Test Subject, Test Robot): This is a recipe for Aperture’s Conversion Gel, which makes any surface it coats able to conduct a portal. More importantly, it’s a huge improvement over Aperture’s current bank-braking recipe. Ground up rocks from any object considered a moon will work, mixed with the recipe for especially thick Jello. Washes off with water.

Repulsion Gel recipe. 200 (AP, discount Technical CEO): This is a recipe for Aperture’s Repulsion Gel, a blue liquid which repulses anything which touches it. Other names include “that bouncy stuff,” “the blue gel,” and “unknown skeleton-hating element.” Unlike Aperture’s current expensive and lengthy recipe, this one involves precisely combining rubber with hydrogen and oxygen. Blue dye is optional. Washes off with water.

Why is this recipe so expensive? Repulsion Gel can be used as a potent weapon against anything mobile that relies on solid structural integrity by covering that thing in the Gel. It will repulse any movement back in the other direction, creating a movement which is then repulsed in the other direction by the Gel covering the other size of that thing. One twitch becomes movement in every direction at terminal velocity, tearing that thing apart. This includes the human body.

Propulsion Gel recipe. (100 AP, discount JuDOS): This is a recipe….. Okay, you get the picture. The acceleration gel is created by adding seemingly random elements to a modern recipe for no-stick spray. The gel increases the velocity of any object moving on it unless that object is at rest. Washes off with water.

Gel Cannon. (150 AP, discount Test Subject, Test Robot): What’s the point of conversion gel if it’s sitting in a barrel? The Aperture Science Gel Storage and Application Apparatus resembles a backpack with an extendable hose extending out of the side. The small containment unit can somehow store twenty gallons of any gel in the firing chamber with additional storage for reserves. It has a range equivalent to the hose on a firetruck and replenishes gel at a rate of one gallon per hour. It holds a maximum of 60 gallons and takes 2 seconds to switch gel from reserve tanks to the firing tank.

Personal Assistant. (150 AP, discount Technical CEO): This loyal assistant is extremely competent and can handle staggering disorganization without making any mistakes. Don’t make them an AI. They are friendly, professional, and don’t charge for their services. Don’t make them an AI. They take up a companion slot, and you can take Caroline if she still exists in your timeline. Don’t make them an AI.

Animal King. (200 AP, Discount JuDOS): A gigantic turret the size of King Kong, armed with bullets large enough to shred through a battleship. Useful for area denial against Kaiju and adding a baritone to your opera performance. Did we mention he can sing?

Investor. (200 AP, Discount Technical CEO): Holy crap, one of Aperture’s investors hasn’t pulled out yet? Either Cave Johnson had some serious dirt on that guy or….. No, that’s probably it. You gain a wealthy investor willing to help fund anything within your business which could reasonably lead the both of you to make a profit. His funds aren’t infinite, but they certainly seem that way sometimes. After this Jump, you will always be able to find a single investor willing to back whatever crazy project you have.

Personality Cores. (100 AP, Discount JuDOS): Pick any three positive nouns. You now have three helpful voices in your head with personalities built exclusively around those nouns. Not only will you never be alone again, the voices will be able to give you largely helpful advice on whatever their topic is. An Anthropologist Sphere could point a scientist trying to reinforce the human skeleton in the right direction. You can turn the voices off if you don’t want to deal with them. These cores are 100% uncorrupted and completely helpful.

Aperture Science Data Collection and Human Suffering Enablement Chamber. (300 AP, Discount JuDOS): Three portals appear in your Warehouse. The first leads to a gigantic monitoring and control room similar to GLaDOS’s mainframe, where you can control and automate a seemingly infinite amount of artificial construction machines. The third portal leads to a cryo-preservation chamber filled with thousands of humans prime for thawing. Where does the second portal lead? To the thing in between them. Your pocket dimension of test chambers!

Using a program suspiciously similar to the one used in Portal 2, you can create up to 30 continuous test chambers utilizing any Aperture technology from both Portal games and your Jump. This includes the Perpetual Testing Initiative drawback, which will update with new props after each Jump you complete. Create rooms filled with turrets and propulsion gel! Nobody is stopping you. Feel free to do actual science and weapons testing too.

Test subjects can’t exit the tests through the portals and enter your warehouse. No technology from the test chambers can either, due to possibility of cross-universal contamination. Please see full legal disclaimer for information relating to your test subjects.

Unexplained Science Thing. (200 AP, Discount Technical CEO): You have no idea what this thing does. No idea at all! It could have the effect of any one of Aperture’s miscellaneous inventions depending on how you try to use it. Shape the ill-defined mass into the shape of a disk and put it in a computer? You’ve discovered the annotated source code for Aperture’s OS, able to run an AI on the power from a potato battery. Disperse it into an air vent and record the results? You now have the ability to convert type AB blood into pure gasoline with laser technology. There’s only enough Unexplained Science Thing for it to be a single one of Aperture’s innovations not already listed here. Choose wisely! Drawbacks:

The Perpetual Testing Initiative. +0: How did Cave Johnson keep building test chambers after bankrupting his company? He used Aperture’s quantum tunneling research to locate alternate versions of his company, tricked them into building his designs, and portaled his test subjects in without them knowing. Easy! Taking this perk means your version of Aperture completed the Perpetual Testing Initiative. If you’re a Test Subject or Test Robot, occasionally the tests you run will be set in or themed around one of your previous Jumps. If you Jumped Half Life, you could be running the Hazard Course with a Portal gun. If you’re a JuDOS or Technical CEO, you can do exactly what Cave Johnson did; attempt to trick alternate versions of Aperture from universes you’ve Jumped to build test chambers for you. Chambers built like that don’t cost money or resources, but they do cost time and effort.

If you’re a JuDOS or Technical CEO, be careful another alternate Aperture doesn’t invade you with test subjects.

None for meme, thanks. +0: Don’t want to suffer through jokes about cake that stopped being funny five years ago? This drawback will selectively replace any memes or viral dialogue with something that won’t drive you crazy. Whatever replaces the old memes will be something you’re guaranteed to find hilarious or clever.

Arson is always the answer. +100: When you face significant opposition from a difficult test, a stubborn test subject, or the laws of the universe, you start on a rant loud enough to wake the dead. Your decision making isn’t impaired by your anger, but you’ll look like a complete nutcase to anyone around you. It won’t be fun either.

I can talk about the control group all damn day. +100: What a surprise! You have no respect for the scientific method, peer review, or double blind trials. This will piss off GLaDOS if you’re a Test Subject or Robot, make helping the scientists difficult if you’re a JuDOS, and a Technical CEO with this drawback will pull the same shit Cave Johnson did. At least a lot of funny dialogue will come out of it, right?

Paradoxes. +200: Logic puzzles, paradoxes, and other unsolvable questions give you a headache powerful enough to knock you unconscious. With enough effort you can avoid thinking about one, but if someone yells one at you repeatedly you’ll faint in seconds. You work in a lab where impossible questions are posed regularly and printed on employee safety posters in case of AI attack. Be careful.

Where’s my Olympus? +300: In another Aperture somewhere in the multiverse, the scientists succeeded in pouring Cave’s brain into a computer. That Aperture is the one you’re living in, and computer Cave Johnson is 100% homicidal. Test Subjects and Test Robots will be in dramatically more danger than before, a JuDOS will have an AI far more competent than Wheatly trying to take over the facility, and a Technical CEO will face the same horror the scientists did after activating GLaDOS.

KILL IT! IT’S EVIL! +300: You hate birds.

You really hate birds.

You fear and revile birds as if they were the literal spawn of hell, and are willing to kill hundreds of people and risk science itself to brutally kill a single harmless bird and her eggs. You are acutely aware that birds are genetically related to dinosaurs and will react to a cute robin flying around in your facility like an Indominus Rex coming to eat your face. You. Hate. Birds.

Good luck with that.

Notes:

FULL ASDCHSEC DISCLAIMER: The Enrichment Center does not recommend consumption of test subjects to fuel dark rituals, vile machinery, and other such devices which require a soul. While it would be a supreme breach of ethics to clone a perfect representative sample of humanity and freeze it for testing, Aperture Science is legally obligated to inform you that there is a nonzero chance of this phenomenon occurring in nature. Should your batch of test subjects turn out to be a freezer of soulless clones, we cannot be held liable for damages including but not limited to; death, true death, undeath, lowered efficiency standards, the wrath of an infinite hellscape that yet hungers for souls, and spiritual indigestion. Thank you for purchasing the ASDCHSEC.

If you can come up with a clever way to use the knowledge of kinetic energy that Thinking With Portals gives, it's allowed 99% of the time. If Magneto can use "power over magnets" to use the entire electromagnetic spectrum, why can't you be creative too?

Clarifying the capstone CEO perk: You don't literally need to copy Aperture for the perk to run at "peak efficiency." You need to match the level of resources and efficiency Aperture had in the 50's. Any way you find to do that will work.

Here are some things that can do that. Intelligence, equipment and test subjects of higher quality than Aperture used, practical training, employees smarter than the scientists at Aperture, the perk from this Jump that lets you run dodgy experiments, perks from other Jumps ways to improve efficiency without sacrificing eithics, and a literally unlimited stream of funding.

If you’re a Technical CEO, can you take all of Aperture’s blueprints and use them to recreate their technology? You can definitely take the blueprints, but they’re something worse than incomprehensible. They’re barely comprehensible enough for you to know they would be considered impossible in the 40K universe. Do you know how to build a fan cooled, stable singularity the size of half a baseball that can be restarted with German stick grenades the size of tiny screws? Even finding a place to begin reverse engineering a working portal gun is daunting. You could look at the data Aperture has or ask the lab staff to help you understand, but that data will likely be 50 years of this with less reliability because of Cave Johnson messing with tests and firing people. The lab staff would be more coherent, but you’d be asking them to explain 50 years of research that began with a shower curtain project. Some inventions like the long fall boots or various gels will be easier to reverse engineer. Defeating kinetic energy or producing a new element are both less daunting than inventing a new branch of Quantum Physics.

Could you have the lab staff build you technology? Yes, but there’s a reason Aperture is bankrupt. Even the long fall boots are described as “expensive as hell.” No downsides if you have the money!

Could you steal technology from alternate Apertures? You can, and there isn’t any explicit downside to that except having to traverse an unknown multiverse and steal technology from a dangerous research facility. The atmosphere inside Aperture could be 100% peanut dust or something equally dangerous, but Jumpchain is all about traveling to alternate universes.

Could you ransack the place on the last day of your Jump and fit everything you can into the warehouse? Now you’re speaking my language. Give them a visit post spark to explain how Planeswalkers work and they might forgive you.

Moving on:

This part not finished!

Married to science.

A world where the laws of the universe can be broken by a shower curtain company? Why would you ever want to leave?! Your affairs are set in order back home, the worlds you previously visited unfreeze, and you remain in the world of this Jump.

You must be the pride of insert subject hometown here.

You've had enough insanity for one lifetime. You return home with all your perks, companions, and all the other things that return home with you when you end your chain.

Science isn’t about why, it’s about “why not?”

You’re nowhere near finished with your Jumpchain, and even the impossible stuff Aperture worked on isn’t enough to keep you entertained. You continue to the next Jump.

Secret Ending:

You bought a Companion Cube and kept it safe until the end, didn’t you? I knew you would! It believed in you!

Don’t let me spoil the surprise, but you really will be thrown a party at the end of the Jump! Everyone you befriended in this Jump will be there, along with your companions and any really good friends from previous Jumps. Why do you think Jumpchan was working on the Perpetual Testing Initiative? She was in on this too!

There was going to be a cake, but everyone agreed that was played out. Pick any dessert you want and Cave Johnson will make it for you. By which I mean he’ll find a multiverse made entirely of that dessert and open a portal there, not actually cook it himself. This is a party, not a funeral!